Shaped Pupil Coronagraph: State of the Art and Projections for TPF ...

Exoplanet Detection with Coronagraphs 2006Shaped Pupil Coronagraph: State of the Art and Projectionsfor TPF Performance and ReadinessMask Structure:Severity:Vertical sidewalls, Off-axis illumination, 10um Opening, 100um Thick7 λVertical sidewalls, Off-axis illumination, 10um Opening, 50um Thick4 λVertical sidewalls, On-axis illumination, 10um Opening, 100um Thick3–4 λVertical sidewalls, On-axis illumination, 10um Opening, 50um Thick3 λVertical sidewalls, On-axis illumination, 48um Opening, 50um Thick3 λVertical sidewalls, On-axis illumination, 48um Opening, 50um Thick2–3 λ20° undercut sidewalls, On-axis illumination, 48um Opening, 50um Thick λ / 4Physical effects on 50um thick Si masks with 48um openings at 630nm:Worst case:Undercut angle3 λSmall mask tiltλ / 2 per degree tiltPolarization λ / 4Wavelength (630nm to 785nm) λ / 4200nm Cr top-coat λ / 100Figure 3: Extent of different effects on the fields around the edges.This data was used to study how vector interactions with the real mask affect the PSF of the real mask (Lieber etal 6 ). The main conclusions were that severities of less than λ/4 do not degrade the 10 10 contrast for mask sizes10 cm and larger. Therefore, with a properly undercut mask, the mask can be assumed ideal and insensitive topolarization, wavelength changes, or coatings. For masks that are not undercut, the degradation depends on themask type and size. In a 10 cm ripple mask, contrast is degraded to 10 9 , while for a 10 cm checkerboard mask,contrast is not degraded. All such effects will be insignificant compared to wavefront error. One importantcorollary to this work is that manufacturing error or imprecision of the edges as large as λ/4 is insignificant (atleast to the extent that manufacturing errors along the edges are similar to effective errors due to vector effects).Such an error is well within modern manufacturing tolerances. The results presented in this section indicate thatreal masks can be manufactured today which, in the absence of wavefront aberrations, will achieve the 10 10contrast required by TPF (except for the trimming limitation discussed later, which can be overcome byspecialized mask designs).SENSITIVITY TO WAVEFRONT ABERRATIONSIn order to assess the sensitivity of shaped pupils to wavefront aberrations, we simulated different Zernikeaberrations at the pupil plane and studied their effects at the image plane 7,8 . Some of these results aresummarized in Figure 4. For these simulations, we assumed a circular concentric ring shaped pupil. Each subplotcorresponds to a different Zernike (starting from tilt, defocus, etc.), and shows the contrast in the image plane ata particular working angle (4 or 8 λ/D) as a function of RMS of aberration. Just as with many othercoronagraphs, the sensitivity is more pronounced at lower inner working angles and higher Zernike orders. Themain conclusion of this work, however, is that the SPC is very insensitive to aberrations (especially to pointingerror or other forms of tilt, defocus, and astigmatism). The wavefront flatness requirement depends on theaberration, but assuming typical power spectral density fall-off such as 1/f 3 , the total flatness requirement needsto be on the order of λ/10,000.129